B’desh removes police officer over funeral gathering amid lockdown
Dhaka: Authorities in Bangladesh have removed a police officer after tens of thousands of people defied the countrywide lockdown to attend the funeral of a Muslim cleric, triggering fears of rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Police Headquarters in a statement on Saturday night cited OC of Sarail Police Station in Brahmanbaria Shahadat Hossain Titu’s failure to take proper steps to prevent the gathering as the reason behind the decision to remove him, reported bdnews24.
On Saturday, thousands of people, without masks and in clear violations of social distancing, participated in the funeral prayers of Khelafat Majlish’s ‘Nayeb-e Amir’ Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, held at a madrasa in Bertola village under Sorail Upazila of Brahmanbaria district.
The cleric had passed away at his home on Friday night.
The gathering was so large that the authorities did not bother to stop it, according to media reports.
Before his removal, the OC said that many people from as far as Dhaka came to join the funeral prayers.
“We never thought there would be this many people. There was nothing we could do once the crowd began streaming in,” he was quoted as saying by bdnews24.
The tally of confirmed cases in Bangladesh currently stands at 2,144, with 84 deaths. (IANS)
Japan government faces backlash after giving away dirty masks
Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s unpopular handouts of old-fashioned cloth masks, as part of his coronavirus measures, faced complaints, as thousands of those sent to pregnant women were dirty.
The health ministry said over the weekend that it has received at least 1,900 cases of the problems reported by 80 municipalities that the masks came with stains, dust and other contamination. The dirty masks were among a half million masks that the government started sending to pregnant women in Japan as a priority last week.
Abe announced a plan on April 1 to mail two cloth masks each to all 50 million households in Japan amid dire shortage of masks. The faulty masks were the latest embarrassment for Abe’s government already criticised for its coronavirus measures inadequate, off-target, too little and too late.
The cloth masks also seem to have a size problem. When the masks also arrived at elderly care centres, television talk shows showed some caregivers struggling to fit the mask, saying it was too small to cover both nose and mouth at the same time. The ministry said it has urged mask makers to resolve the contamination problem, while asking municipal officials to visually inspect the masks before mailing them. (AP)